CCP Games recently announced that its community-driven space sandbox MMO EVE Online has been awarded two Guinness World Records stemming from a 14-hour battle that occurred on December 30 - 31, 2020. This brings the number of Guinness World Records that EVE Online has received to four.
The two recent World Records awarded were for Most Costly Video Game Battle and Most Titans Lost in a Battle of EVE Online. These records come on the heels of the first two the game earned back in October of 2020. Both new records were broken during The Massacre of M2-XFE that pitted the Imperium and PAPI player-run coalitions against each other, and which CCP officially called “the most destructive battle New Eden had ever seen.” The Massacre blog post gives a highly detailed timestamp account of the battle, complete with screenshots of the actual battle, and a by-the-numbers breakdown of the sheer amount of destruction that was wrought in both the number of ships destroyed and ISK cost. It was a lot.
According to Guinness, the New Years’ Eve Massacre of M2-XFE “saw $378,012 (£278,375, €307,728) lost,” with those amounts representing “the effort-value of the destruction and not an actual amount of money spent by participants on this fight” according to CCP Games. One of the primary reasons that record-breaking cost happened was due to the equally record-breaking number of 257 Titan ships being destroyed during the battle, which equates to nearly 20% of the 1,304 Titans that were engaged in the battle. For reference, the Titan is the largest class of ship in EVE Online, requiring about eight weeks in real-time to build, and costs billions of ISK (the in-game currency), which can take actual years to accumulate via in-game methods.
The Massacre of M2-XFE is the latest battle of World War Bee 2, which has been escalating between in-game player factions since July 2020. According to the press release, World War Bee 2 is “the third such universal war since the game’s release in 2003,” with the Massacre of M2-XFE being the costliest battle of the war by far. CCP Games has begun construction on an in-game monument to commemorate the battle and the players involved, which will be deployed sometime in the near future.
“EVE Online has once more demonstrated the astounding events that can happen within the universe of New Eden and with its player-driven world,” said Hilmar V. Pétursson, CCP Games’ CEO. “Watching the Massacre of M2-XFE unfold was a visually breathtaking moment for all of us at CCP. None of this could be possible without our hugely dedicated players around the world, and we thank you for believing in our vision of what EVE Online can be.”
EVE Online is available to download for free from its website and from Steam.
Source: Games Press / CCP Games / Guinness World Records